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The Journal of Neuroscience, November 12, 2008, 28(46):12071-12084; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2869-08.2008

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Contributions of the Human Temporoparietal Junction and MT/V5+ to the Timing of Interception Revealed by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Gianfranco Bosco,^1,2,3 Mauro Carrozzo,^3,4 and Francesco Lacquaniti^1,2,3

¹Department of Neuroscience and ²Center of Space Biomedicine, University of Rome "Tor Vergata," 00133 Rome, Italy, ³Department of Neuromotor Physiology, Santa Lucia Foundation, 00179 Rome, Italy, and ⁴Laboratory of Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology, Institute of Neuroscience, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 00179 Rome, Italy

Correspondence should be addressed to Gianfranco Bosco, Department of Neuroscience and Center of Space Biomedicine, University of Rome "Tor Vergata," Via Montpellier 1, 00133 Rome, Italy. Email: bosco{at}med.uniroma2.it

To intercept a fast target at destination, hand movements must be centrally triggered ahead of target arrival to compensate for neuromechanical delays. The role of visual-motion cortical areas is unclear. They likely feed downstream parietofrontal networks with signals reflecting target motion, but do they also contribute internal timing signals to trigger the motor response? We disrupted the activity of human temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and middle temporal area (hMT/V5+) by means of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) while subjects pressed a button to intercept targets accelerated or decelerated in the vertical or horizontal direction. Target speed was randomized, making arrival time unpredictable across trials. We used either repetitive TMS (rTMS) before task execution or double-pulse TMS (dpTMS) during target motion. We found that after rTMS and dpTMS at 100–200 ms from motion onset, but not after dpTMS at 300–400 ms, the button-press responses occurred earlier than in the control, with time shifts independent of target speed. This suggests that activity in TPJ and hMT/V5+ can feed downstream regions not only with visual-motion information, but also with internal timing signals used for interception at destination. Moreover, we found that TMS of hMT/V5+ affected interception of all tested motion types, whereas TMS of TPJ significantly affected only interception of motion coherent with natural gravity. TPJ might specifically gate visual-motion information according to an internal model of the effects of gravity.

Key words: interception; gravity; internal model; TMS; visual motion; magnetic

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Received June 21, 2008; revised Oct. 2, 2008; accepted Oct. 6, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Gianfranco Bosco, Department of Neuroscience and Center of Space Biomedicine, University of Rome "Tor Vergata," Via Montpellier 1, 00133 Rome, Italy. Email: bosco{at}med.uniroma2.it

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